


A Green and Growing Thing

by valamerys



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: (mostly elucien tho), Angst, Elucien - Freeform, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Nessian - Freeform, feyrhys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-17 13:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8144932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valamerys/pseuds/valamerys
Summary: It is not passionate and sweeping and fraught, like Feyre’s relationship with Rhysand, nor is it the heightened antagonism of Cassian and Nesta’s war-like courtship, or even Azriel and Mor's silent, fierce devotion. Elain and Lucien have something different, a green and growing thing between them.[This is the story of the fox boy and the flower girl, of spring and fall and everything inbetween]





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS IT, MY DUDES, THE BIG FEELSY "WHAT HAPPENS POST ACOMF" ELUCIEN FIC. STRAP TF IN.

Lucien looks unwell.

 _Good_ , Feyre thinks nastily.

That is ungenerous of her, and she knows it. Lucien has been trapped in this hell for much longer than she was, the only buffer between Tamlin’s increasingly unhinged behavior and the rest of Prythian, and if he has utterly failed, it is at least party because such was an impossible task for one man. And, she had learned, he’s been walking a razor thin line between rebuffing Ianthe’s very forward advances and not offending Tamlin, who, in his idiocy, has been absently encouraging the match. Lucien has lost something transient and vital in the last three months, some of the fire gone out of him and replaced with a thin desperation in his limbs when he moves.

Still, Feyre remembers that day in the snow every time she meets his sunken, sleep-deprived gaze, remembers his willingness to _drag_ her back here, and she can’t help but smile hollowly at him behind Tamlin’s back.

Such as now, as Tamlin is called from dinner by a harried sentinel just returned from the border with news to report, kissing Feyre on the cheek and leaving her in a dead silent room with Lucien. His metal eye makes a faint whirring sound as it narrows.

“I know what you’re doing, Feyre.”

She flashes him a look so exaggeratedly confused, so falsely innocent, that it occurs to Feyre she should have been an actress. Maybe there’s a theater in Velaris she could audition at. “Why, Lucien, what could I be doing?” But she doesn’t bother wiping the smirk from her face.

 

**********************

 

Lucien is beyond the game Feyre is playing, is beyond skepticism or anger or coyness. His head shakes almost imperceptibly, and he tries not to betray the scratchiness in his throat. “Don’t do this. Please. I’m begging you. Just… try to understand.” Feyre’s amused expression doesn’t change. “I know you’re angry, and you’re hurt. You have every right to be. But he loves you. And you’re going to _destroy_ him, Feyre.”

Her face goes cold as the winter court winds. “That’s exactly what I intend to do, Lucien. That’s exactly what he deserves.”

“Feyre—“

“And you’re going to help me.” She smiles pointedly, “If you ever want to see my sister again.”

Lucien doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe as Feyre goes on.

“Rhys and Tamlin can make whatever deals they like. Tamlin can send a hundred armies to storm the Night Court, could have Elain brought here tomorrow, but if you don’t do exactly as I say, I swear on the Mother you will never see so much as the back of her head.” She says softly, viciousness wrapped in silk.

Lucien closes his eyes. He’d been _so stupid_ . He’s berated himself a thousand times for it already, for just _blurting_ out his bond with Elain not only to the entire Night Court, but to Hybern and his cronies, to those miserable queens, to all the spies and snitches and informers in the palace—there’s probably no one in Prythian who hasn’t heard that the runt son of the High Lord of the Fall Court is mated to a made Fae, a former _human_ , sister to the Cursebreaker. And now all of Prythian, down to Feyre in front of him, can use her against him. His one comfort in Elain being held at the Night Court is that there is no chance of anyone in the Fall Court getting involved; he would not put it past his father or absent brothers to hunt her down, hurt her to hurt him in a sick reprise of their past sins, but his brothers and father are as patently terrified of Rhysand and as mystified by his court as everyone else is. The thought of an innocent woman getting hurt for his stupidity makes him sick with horror—a thought he has already confronted, with Rhysand making grand threats to win the Spring Court’s cooperation, though he knows based on Feyre’s calmness that they are empty. Feyre is changed, stronger and more ruthless, but she is still herself, and she would still not tolerate her sisters being injured. Lucien does not trust Rhysand, but with the dreams Lucien has of sunlight-dappled flowers and tiny hands tending them, he trusts mating bonds.

Feyre is still waiting for his response.

Perhaps he should pretend her threat means nothing to him, that he has no interest in Elain or in pursuing their connection. For all he knows, she never wants to see him again anyway. For all he knows, Rhysand and his courtiers fill her ears even now with the worst version of him, telling her that her mate left her sister to waste away, that her mate is the right hand of a monster, that her mate is a fool and a coward. All of which are true, he thinks miserably. Elain would be better off by far if they pretended the bond didn’t exist, if he let Feyre keep them apart.

And, of course, he doesn’t know her. A mating bond doesn’t mean anything, doesn’t even mean he’ll like _her_ , much less that she’ll like him; he has no logical reason to stake anything on it, however his dreams try to convince him otherwise. But—

 _But_ —

He remembers hoisting her into his arms, feeling her racing, terrified pulse. He remembers how the cauldron waters hadn’t quite masked her scent, he remembers how her soaking nightgown bled through his shirt where he held her.

But mostly he remembers the single moment she’d really, truly looked at him, as her sister wrenched her away, and he’d felt the axis of the world shift, felt that gravity no longer tied him to the ground but to her, _her_ , and those liquid brown eyes like a dove's. And maybe it is no more than a cauldron-sent compulsion, maybe that’s all it will ever be. But the thought of never looking into those eyes again, never understanding why it inspired an ache that has taken up residence deep within him, is intolerable.

He has done terrible things in the name of loyalty to Tamlin. He would do far worse things for even the slightest, most absurd chance to know this woman, to understand why a higher power has seen fit to tether their souls together.

“What do you want me to do?”

**********************

It takes only a few weeks for the whole thing to go to shit.

“Are you hurt?”

And it takes Lucien a full five seconds longer than it should to place that that’s _Rhysand’s_ voice. The _worry_ in it makes it almost unrecognizable to Lucien, and on top of that he sounds faraway, as though speaking through a tunnel. Feyre’s hurried response is the same.

“No, I’m fine, Tamlin just—“

“I know, darling—”

“I’m sorry, Rhys, this wrecks my cover, but I couldn’t stay—“

“Don’t apologize, Feyre, we should have gotten you out of there ages ago. I swear I’ll kill him.” His voice breaks. “Cauldron, Feyre, I almost winnowed straight into that room and got you out myself.”

Lucien still cannot reconcile what he knows of Rhysand with the _love_ in the voice he is hearing come out of him right now. It does not help that Lucien is hideously dizzy, vision so blurry and off-color that Rhysand and Feyre are just smudges in his spinning peripheral.

He’d absorbed almost the entire blast of magic Tamlin had exploded in in a fit of rage, and—he was fairly certain, although it was a blur—been hit with a few flying pieces of the desk and vase that had also fallen victim. He puts a hand above his left eyebrow, vaguely recalling something striking him there. Feyre, thank the cauldron, had been just fast enough to throw a shield up over herself, and then there was only the sensation of her grabbing his arm and a flash of white as Tamlin roared—

A change in Rhysand’s tone. “Why is he with you.”

“I couldn’t leave him, Rhys, look at him.”

 _Look at him._ Lucien has a dull understanding that they are talking about him, but he draws the hand away from his forehead, slowly, and the bright red shock of the blood there is all he can focus on, head swimming, everything too bright.

“I _am_ looking at him, and all I see is a man who tried to take you back to the spring court against your will, who sat by while you faded away into _nothing_ —“

“You don’t know what he’s been through, Rhys,” He can’t see Feyre, but he knows from her voice just how she’d look, the blazing-eye’d conviction, the set jaw, the strong stance as she defends him. A prick of shame works its way through the haze of his mind. He doesn’t deserve that from Feyre. Rhysand is right.

“I don’t care what he’s been through,” Rhysand’s control is slipping, primal defense of his mate coming snarling to the forefront. “Anyone who left you to waste away in that hell isn’t welcome here. He helped make the deal with Hybern—“

“Would you have me leave him with that _monster_?”

Even though Lucien has been actively betraying Tamlin for weeks now, defenses still fly to his lips as a reflex, the usual protestations, practically memorized— _he’s scared, Feyre, he loves you, he’s just worried, he’s doing this to keep us safe, under the mountain was hard for him, it will get better soon—_

But there’s no air in his lungs to speak, and, very belatedly, he feels the sharp pain of the gash on his forehead seeping through to his consciousness. The gash that Tamlin put there. _He didn’t mean to_ , his automatic response supplies, but it sits sourly in his mind, bile rising in his throat as Rhysand and Feyre’s argument grows fuzzy and inaudible.

There is _something else_ here, though, something faintly pulsating, a tug in his chest, and it is hard to parse from all the other strange effects he’s feeling, but it’s more persistent than the others, easier to focus on. His mind seems to clear as he does, senses sharpening. There’s a _want_ to it, a faint, foreign hunger he has no idea how to satisfy, and he finds he can reach towards it, in some abstract metaphysical sense.

It hits him like a kick to the ribs, the realization that its warmth feels the same as the dreams he has of her, its rightness the same as the single moment her trembling body was in his arms. The _thing_ is the mating bond and he can feel her, _here_ , on the other side of it. In the Spring Court, she was so far away, and the bond so frail and new, that it was a phantom pain, nothing more than glimpses while he slept, an indistinct ache when he woke. But here he senses her, through this living thing between them, feels the faintest anxiety flicker on her end, feels his own flare in response.

Lucien is so deep in his own head, so focused on the distant feeling of Elain, that he’s oblivious to the woman at his elbow until she clears her throat. He starts just a little, but at least his senses have cleared enough to make out a vaguely familiar woman with thick blonde hair, eyes narrowed at him.

“You,” She says, indicating with her chin towards the door. “Come with me.”

Her tone brokers no room for argument. And Rhysand and Feyre have stopped arguing and are now kissing, which is alarming to witness even if Feyre has spent weeks convincing Lucien that Rhysand really is her mate, so Lucien is glad enough to be led away. He follows her through the huge domed doorway and down the hall, this way and that, past balconies and stately doors, their footsteps the only sound. Lucien clears his throat, heart still hammering with the fresh intensity of the bond.

“Where am I?”

He feels, instinctively, that this is a stupid question, but as he takes in, finally, the open spaces, the sweet, quiet kiss of evening air, the sweeping marble pillars, the lack of tormented screams— this can’t be the Night Court, the blood-soaked underground nightmare of all the stories he’s heard.

The woman glances back at him sharply as she turns a corner. “Somewhere safe.”

He stares at her, a recollection of her face somewhere in the back of his mind.

“Who are you?”

“No one you need to concern yourself with.” The bite in it says that she is on Rhysand’s side of the argument regarding his presence, and the suggestion of roughness when she pushes him through a door into a small bedroom confirms it. “You’ll stay here for the time being,” she says. He knows it means _until we figure out what to do with you._

He’s not sure what the appropriate response is, but he was raised a courtier, courtesy the most ingrained of his lessons. “Thank you,” he murmurs. He should leave it at that, he knows he should, but he can’t help it when he goes on. “Is—“ He hears the woman pause, and he takes a moment to gather the courage to ask the only question he really cares about. “Is Elain here?”

He knows she is, can feel it in his bones like the pressure in the air that heralds an oncoming storm, but it’s the only tactful way he can think of to voice the overwhelming need to see her, to find out if she feels his presence, craves it, like he does her—

The woman doesn’t respond, and slams the door on him. He hears a lock slide into place.

 

 

 

Come party with me on [tumblr](https://valamerys.tumblr.com/) for more Elucien :)


	2. Chapter 2

 

There is something lodged in Elain’s chest, leaving no room for anything else: her heart hammers in her throat and her lungs refuse to cooperate fully. Whatever _it_ is, it’s pulsing slightly, like it’s alive, and yet it’s so faint that every few minutes Elain convinces herself that she’s imagining it.

But it won’t go away. Elain is not imagining it. She sits paused at her embroidery, trying not to let Nesta, across the room sharpening her knives, sense that anything is wrong.

If Elain is not imagining it, she is presumably also not imagining that she feels…something _through_ it, that the thing is a thread being tugged at by something else, somewhere else. Something else that’s sending her the vaguest sensation of confusion, and with it, something that tastes bitter in Elain’s mouth.

The door swings open with a little too much force and Elain looks up from her embroidery to see Mor, face overcast.

“Feyre’s back.” She says by way of greeting.

Nesta starts to her feet. “What? Is she—“

“Fine,” Mor says quickly, “Thank the cauldron. It sounds like the brute threw a fit and she had to get away.”

“Can we see her?” Nesta asks.

“She’s with Rhys right now,” an answer and an explanation all in one. But there is a tenseness to Mor—some other information she hasn’t shared.

Nesta feels it too, hones in on it with sharp severity. “What’s wrong, then?”

Mor’s gaze rests on Elain. “She brought Lucien with her.”

Now Elain _really_ can’t breathe.

Nesta’s whole countenance sours, her gaze flickering to Elain as well. “Lucien?” A growl traces his name. “Why would Feyre bring that rat here?”

Rhysand and the others have told them about Lucien, every time Elain could work up the nerve to ask. The facts about him tended to be pitying at best, and at worst… Elain was sure Nesta had added him to her roster of people to destroy. As it was, Nesta went cold as ice every time he was mentioned.

Mor doesn’t seem any happier than Nesta. “He was hurt, and she had to make a very quick decision. I don’t blame her for it.”

Elain can’t help the question that blurts out of her. “Is he alright?”

Mor stares at her with uncomfortable skepticism, like she’s not sure Elain should have this information. “He’s fine. I put him downstairs, in one of the guest rooms.”

Nesta’s fury spikes, her magic crackling in the air. “I’m sorry, do the _High Lord and Lady_ not understand that he’s the _enemy_?” She bites out. “After Hybern’s crew and the Spring Court dick, the ginger is third on my shit list, and they’ve got him set up in a spare bedroom like he’s a cousin come to visit? Bullshit.”

“Rhys, at least, agrees with you.” Mor says darkly, stalking towards the window. “I don’t doubt he’ll be gone in the morning, either sent back to the Spring Court or moved to a more appropriate cell.”

Elain feels faint. “I need some air,” She manages, the weight of Mor and Nesta’s gazes on her a tangible thing as she rises with as much grace as she can muster. She passes through the bedroom and out to the balcony, and Nesta says something low to Mor that Elain doesn’t want to hear as she quickly shuts the double doors behind her.

The mate bond. That’s what she’s feeling, the presence on the other end of it is _him_ , the secondhand confusion she’s experiencing is his. She moves to the railing, places her hands against it to steady herself. She’s not sure what she feels—her emotions are a jumble, and she’s not entirely certain all of them are hers, but mostly she’s worried. _For him_ , she realizes. She’s worried for him. She hopes he’s alright.

The doors burst open and Nesta strides through them, face wrought with distress rather than anger as she embraces Elain swiftly, crushing her into her shoulder.

“Elain, I’m sorry, I wasn’t even thinking. You must be terrified with him here.” Elain makes to speak, but Nesta’s angry energy has been redirected to _protectiveness_ with such a force that it allows no room for objection. “I understand. Don’t worry,” She says fiercely, drawing back to look Elain’s face up and down, smooth her hair. “Mor says he’s locked up, and she’ll have Cassian guard the door if you want. We won’t let him near you, I promise.”

Elain almost laughs at how deeply Nesta has misinterpreted her reaction, but her sister’s expression is too tense for that. Elain shakes her head instead. “I’m sure that’s not necessary, really.”

Nesta grips her hand. “Are you sure? Mor says it’s no problem.”

If anything, He’d probably jump at the chance. Cassian’s wings are well on the mend, but he can’t fly and is confined to the house, lest he do something Cassian-like and end up hurting himself further. He’s been trying to make himself useful in every way he can despite it.

“Yes, I’m sure.” She gives Nesta her most winning smile, the one that always worked on their father. “It’s not a big deal, it just… surprised me. It’s only one night, we can just pretend he’s not here.”

Elain doesn’t imagine that’s actually possible, but it seems like the right thing to say. Nesta stands down a fraction, however reluctantly. Her eyes still search Elain as though looking for some sign to the contrary, but her lips narrow into a line.

“Alright. But you _tell me_ if you change your mind,” she says, and her hand tightens briefly on Elain’s arm before she lets her go.

Elain can’t help but feel a little rush of affection for her sister, the lioness, always so ready to defend her from even the most benign threats. Certainly, it has gotten overbearing on one occasion or another, but no one makes Elain feel safer, more loved, than Nesta does. Especially since the cauldron. The court of dreams are good people, but there is only so much they can understand about how new and strange this world and these bodies are to the two of them: Elain and Nesta have each other above all else as they adapt to this.

Though not even Nesta can understand the fluttering thing inside her that ties her to the man who called her _mate_.

Nesta stares out over Velaris as another thought must occur to her, mind still working to _protect_. “We could go stay in the townhouse for the night, if you wanted, I’m sure Rhys won’t mind—“

A fond smile tugs at Elain’s mouth. “Nesta, it’s fine. I promise.”

Nesta makes skeptical eye contact with her before exhaling deeply, relenting at last. “I’ll go tell Mor we won’t need Cassian. Want to spar before bed?”

Elain does not really want to spar, but she does want to reassure her sister of her well-being, so she tries to look pleased. “Sure. I'll meet you on the roof in a little bit, I'd like to take a minute out here.”

She waits until she hears the glass doors click closed before she lowers her head to the cold marble railing and tries to breathe evenly, in and out. A gust of cool night air cuts through her sleeves. The last of purplish sunset has been run from the sky, the Night Court awash in deep, star-speckled back, and she can still feel the mate bond humming in her veins.

 

****************

 

She spars with Nesta, and the feeling of the bond _almost_ goes away. Or maybe it’s just easier to ignore like this, with her focus on keeping up a volley of chatter which feels a little like a test, like if she falters too many times, Nesta will declare her a hapless, fear-stricken maiden and spirit her away to the townhouse. As usual, to even the playing field, Nesta doesn’t use her magic as they fight, and she still beats Elain as roundly as always, the training Cassian puts them through taken to by Nesta like a fish to water while Elain flounders. But Elain doesn’t care, because if it is a test, she passes.

At least until they ready for bed. To Nesta’s credit, Elain feels certain she’s been itching to bring it up again, and has refrained until the last possible moment to check.

Nesta already sits in bed, blotting her hair, damp from the bath, so it doesn’t drip onto her nightgown, when she speaks. “You’re absolutely sure you don’t want me to ask Cassian to stand guard?”

Elain pauses in her efforts to turn down the thick white covers of her own bed. “Nesta…”  
  
“He wouldn’t mind.”

“I know.”

Whatever Elain is feeling, anxiety or dissatisfaction or confusion, it doesn’t include the need to be _guarded_ , like some expensive jewel likely to be stolen away in the night. She resumes fluffing her pillows before saying, softly, “I’m not afraid of him.”

She doesn’t need to clarify that the _him_ is not Cassian.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be true, but it is. Even if she met him during the single most horrifying event of her life, the memory of those mismatched eyes summons nothing so much as the overwhelming certainty that he would never hurt her, that he’s _safe_. She supposes that might be intellectually incorrect, that her instincts might be based in weird magical hormones rather than reality, but either way, they refuse to be ignored. Nesta watches her closely, but does not speak again except to murmur a goodnight when Elain puts out the faelight that keeps the room lit.

The sound of Nesta’s breathing from the other bed grows even and deep quickly, but Elain lies wide awake for what might be hours. She tries to think of other things, anything, but in the milky moonlit darkness she can’t escape the strangeness of the newly strengthened bond, the way it lives in every part of her and no part of her and tugs at something behind her ribs.

Elain clutches Lucien’s jacket closer.

She’s slept with it every night since Hybern, and some nights, when she still feels the cauldron waters trying to claw down her throat, it’s only by burying her face in it and breathing in the faint scent of woodsmoke and spice that clings there that she’s able to get to sleep at all. Rhysand has explained mating bonds to her—his voice laced with apology, whether for it being foisted upon her when she already has so much to deal with, or because her mate is _Lucien_ , Elain is still not sure—but nothing he’d said had seemed connected to the jacket, or real at all, until tonight.

Elain tugs at the sheets, tucks the jacket under her head in a futile attempt to get comfortable enough to sleep, even as her mind won’t quiet. It isn’t so much that she wants to see him—that’s the maddening part, that what she wants is not so specific, not definable. It's just that for him to be so close, this connection humming under her skin, feels like a question, and she wants an answer, whatever it is. Then there is the second maddening part, which is that she cannot possibly justify to herself just… showing up at his door and hoping he’s in any way glad to see her. If she’d been born fae, perhaps that he is her mate would be enough, but Elain is still human in her sensibilities, and humans do not go so far out of their way to speak to men they barely know, especially not in the middle of the night. Maybe Feyre would be bold enough to, or Nesta, Elain thinks with some degree of envy, but she has never been the brave one.

Elain huffs in frustration, turning over, cheek against the jacket’s sleeve. She freezes against it.

If someone—even one you barely knew—had _lost_ something, it was simply common courtesy to seek him out and return it.

Elain’s heart leaps as she sits up, holding it in front of her, wondering that she hadn’t thought of it sooner. If she’d been a little more objective, it might have been embarrassing, the force with which she suddenly clings to the idea, but there is no room for anything but adrenaline as she gets out of bed, throws a short-sleeved dressing robe over her nightgown, and opens the door as quietly as she can, praying that Nesta stays asleep.

Elain slips into the dark hall, holding the jacket tight.

************

It’s not about seeing him, she tells herself, repeats in her head as she pads down the hallways, the marble cold on her bare feet. She’s just returning the jacket.

Their first week, in an effort to make them feel safe, Mor had told them where Rhysand kept a spare skeleton key, and Elain feels only the tiniest bit bad as she nabs it now from the pot on the mantle in the dining room. The metal is cool in her palm as she looks around.

“Nuala,” she whispers, hoping that is enough to work. The summoning of Rhysand’s servants is something of a mysterious alchemy, and Elain is not certain whether or not they sleep at night like fae or humans do, but either way, Nuala’s shadowy form emerges in the doorway.

“Do you know where Lucien is?”

Saying his name makes it feel all the more real, and all the more _stupid_ , that she is doing this, but Nuala mercifully betrays no judgement as she nods.

“Will you take me to him?”

Nuala obliges, and Elain finds that once they are close, she already knows which door it is—or the bond does, as it pulls her towards it gently. Nuala vanishes as she does, and Elain tries to breathe evenly to calm her runaway heart rate, her palms damp as she holds the jacket.

She knocks twice, gently.

A voice, slightly muffled and maybe a touch confused: “Come in.”

Elain unlocks the door—it takes a moment longer than it ought to, she's trembling slightly—and opens it, slipping in and closing it behind her before she lets herself look at him. He’s sitting up against the pillows in the bed, though it’s still made underneath him and his shoes are still on, legs crossed at the ankles. A lump rises in her throat. Whatever Nesta has accused Feyre and Rhysand of, Lucien seems to know he’s a prisoner.

He’s also staring at her like she’s a ghost.

“I… hope I didn’t wake you,” she says, voice quieter than she means it to be, although she’s grateful she even managed anything coherent.

“Not at all,” he replies softly. His arms are crossed against his chest and he’s perfectly still, in that eerie fae way Elain has yet to master—although she can hear a faint whirring, which she realizes a half-step late is coming from his metal eye.

Elain’s mouth has gone dry, and she has to make a conscious effort to swallow, an unblemished, perfectly awkward silence growing between them. Frantically, she mentally casts for her excuse to come here, to prevent this exact thing from happening.

“I, um, have your jacket,” she blurts as she remembers, holding it up quickly. “I mean I wanted to return it, that is.” And now her face is red, and she’s mentally kicking herself for not being better prepared for this; three sentences and she already looks like an idiot.

He blinks at it, as though it takes him a moment to figure out what it is. A shadow of a frown crosses his face, but he leans forward, reaches out a hand. “Thank you,” he says, as Elain crosses towards the bed to hand it to him, not wanting to make him get up.

She almost freezes when he takes it from her, because it’s the moment his scent hits her. How stupid of her, to have not realized it beforehand: that the jacket smelled like that because _he_ does. It’s equal parts instinct and familiarity now, after so many nights breathing it in, that make her ache with the _comfort_ of the scent, so much stronger from its source than from the fabric.

But this close, he looks gaunt, his eyes shadowed with twin purple. Even not knowing him, not in any way that matters, it is impossible not to feel a pang of worry. She doesn’t see any injuries, at least, but hadn’t Mor said he was hurt?

“Are you alright?” she asks, a tentative thing.

He stares at her a moment before answering, as though not convinced she is real.

“I’ll live,” he says finally, and his mouth twitches with it, like he wants to smile. Elain wishes suddenly that she knew what that _meant_ , that she knew him well enough to read the reactions he’s giving her, but any amusement dissipates with another pause. “Are _you_ alright?” He asks her in return.

Elain falters, remembering the last time he saw her. It has been two months in this new body—she has learned how to move in it, the shock has worn off, but she is not sure she is ready to answer the question.

“I’ll live too.” She says thinly, the attempt at humor falling a little flat. She means to smile at him, make it more convincing, but her intent is overtaken by concern as she more closely at him. There’s a cut on his forehead; it’s almost healed, a vanishingly thin red line, but he has no access to water to clean the excess of red-brown dried blood that runs down it, past his temple to his jaw. It almost blends in with his hair, or she would have noticed it sooner.

“Your face,” Elain murmurs, whatever she meant to say or do earlier forgotten.

“I know, it’s tragic. Almost too asymmetrical to bear looking at.”

Elain can’t help but laugh a little at this, because he’s _singularly_ beautiful, even with the scar and the metal eye. Because of them, even, though his exquisite cheekbones don’t hurt either. “No, I mean—“

“I know,” he gives her a smile that might be an apology for his joke, and gestures vaguely to the blood. “It’s fine. I’ve had worse on me.”

“It’s not fine.” Elain feels oddly defensive, knowing that Mor could easily magicked it away, or at least let him use a damn sink before locking him up. She makes a decision. “Wait here,” she says quickly, turning her back on him to open the door and slip back out before he can object. It closes with a click behind her and she takes a moment, wincing, to lament her choice of phrase— _wait here,_ where would he possibly have gone? _Stupid_ —and takes off down the hallway.

Elain knows where to find a linen closet with clean rags, and nabs a decorative basin from the front hall that she hopes isn’t important, filling it with tapwater from the bathroom she passes on the way back. The hiss of the faucet fills the darkness, and Elain realizes her hands are shaking slightly. She tries not to _think_ , worried that if she _thinks_ she’ll panic and go back upstairs and hide under the covers.

She manages to resist the impulse and returns, closing the door quietly, although there’s little risk of anyone hearing them from this wing of the house.

Elain had had a vague intention of merely giving him the supplies, but as she sets the basin down on the bedside table, she realizes that there’s no mirror in the room. It seems silly to go back out and fetch one, and even sillier to make him wipe blindly at his own face when there are splatters of blood he’ll surely miss and a still-healing cut he can’t see, so she takes a moment to steel herself, and then pretends it was always her intention to play nursemaid and clean the blood herself.

She dips the rag in the water and wrings it out, pretending not to see his raised eyebrows.

“Elain,” It’s the first time she’s heard him say her name, and she steadfastly ignores the surge of _feeling_ it pulls from her, “Please, you don’t have to—“

“I know I don’t have to,” she sits carefully on the edge of the bed. “I want to.”

His throat works for a moment; he seems to start and abandon several arguments in his head, his eyes flickering between both of hers, something inscrutable in them, before acquiescing.

“As you wish.”

He pushes his hair back, sweeping it over the opposite shoulder. Elain can’t help but admire the color. There had been a painting in their old house, before their father lost the fortune, of an ocean horizon at sunset, the sun casting the waves in bright oil paint hues of crimson-orange that Elain would spend hours staring at. Lucien’s hair is just that shade, light cast as fire. Even tangled like it is, it looks soft, and Elain feels the sudden urge to touch it.

She clamps down on the thought and swallows it as she raises the damp rag to his face and gently swabs at at the worst of the damage. This close, she can feel his heat, his scent, detect his breaths and the weight of his eyes on her, every one of her new fae senses hyper attuned to him. She asks the first thing that comes to mind, trying to distract from the sensation.

“Your metal eye—can you see out of it?”

His mouth quirks up. “Imperfectly. But yes.” He blinks, and it’s a little disconcerting to watch the flesh eyelid cover the gold up this close.

“How… does that work, exactly?” Elain keeps talking, afraid of what she’ll feel if they lapse into silence again. “There’s a great deal about magic I still don’t understand.”

He laughs. “Oh, I have no idea. You’re not alone in not understanding magic, I assure you; high fae value practical application over academic theory.”

Elain frowns, reaching over to rinse the rag. “But you have powers, don’t you? Don’t all high fae? Don’t you know how they work?”

“Not all high fae, no. And as for my powers—” He raises both hands, palms splayed, and Elain jumps when tiny flames appear at the tip of each finger, like candles. He turns them, and the flames roll into each other and down his thumbs until each palm has a fireball dancing neatly in it. Elain can’t help but half-laugh with surprise, and Lucien smiles—the first real smile she has seen from him, and it makes her breath catch. He claps his hands together and the tiny fires explode in a shower of sparks that burn out into nothing by the time they land. His hands smoke for a moment and then are perfectly fine; he holds them up to show her as though it was a human magic trick and not a faerie one.

“That’s wonderful,” Elain says, delighted. She has seen quite a bit of magic—Nesta is gleefully discovering hers, and Rhysand never stops using it—but nothing quite so harmlessly _fun_.

Lucien laughs at that. “You’d be the first person to think so. I can’t do much more than that with fire; I’m almost embarrassingly weak considering my father’s abilities.”

“It’s more than I can do,” Elain offers lamely, wringing out the rag again and resuming her task. “I don’t have any powers.” She tries, and fails, to squash the niggle of jealousy in her stomach when she says it, but imagines he hears it anyway. It’s impossible _not_ to be a little jealous when Feyre can bend every element in the world and then some to her will, and Nesta cleaves boulders in half during training while Elain still struggles with high kicks.

He frowns. “None? That’s surprising. The cauldron seems too unpredictable for that.”

“Maybe there’s something,” Elain says with a shrug, “but for all the time I’ve been in the Night Court, nothing yet.” She lets her eyes briefly meet his again before continuing tracing his jawline with the rag. The blood comes off in flecks and patches against it.

“So this _is_ the Night Court.”

It’s her turn to frown. “Where did you think we were?”

“I had no idea,” he admits. “But this… isn’t what I expected for the reported court of terror.”

Elain is fairly certain she’s not supposed to say anything about the Night Court, though she doubts Lucien particularly _cares_ , much less would use it against them, but she doesn’t respond even so.

Lucien smiles lazily at her, like he knows why. “I’ll say this for the Night Court, excellent service. I was locked up at the Dawn Court once, after a border patrol misunderstanding, and not a single beautiful woman materialized in the middle of the night to wash the blood off me.”

Elain can’t keep a little grin off her face. “No one told me you were funny.”

He returns it, even as his next statement sucks the levity out of the room. “What _did_ they tell you?”

Elain pauses halfway to the basin, glancing quickly at him, and then away again. Surely he knows that it was not complimentary. “That you’re the youngest son of the High Lord of Fall, and you serve the High Lord of the Spring Court,” she says carefully.

He puffs out a laugh. “How diplomatic of you. You should think about a career in politics.”

She dips the rag again, but holds it in her hands, some change in the mood of the conversation staying her. “They said that your brothers and father are monsters, and so’s your Lord. That better?”

“Two for two.” He says wryly. “Anything else?”

She’s not sure what he’s getting at, but she goes on. “Amarantha took your eye. You like to hunt. You’re technically Tamlin’s emissary.” She hesitates. “Rhysand doesn’t like you.”

Lucien tips his head back and waits, seemingly prompting her to expand on it.

“He called you a coward and a fool and several other uncomplimentary things.”

He hums faintly. “He’s probably right about all of them.”

Elain looks at him in alarm. If anything, she expected him to defend himself, or offer explanation. He doesn’t look remorseful, or even angry. He just meets her gaze evenly. She shakes her head a fraction, but before she can even voice the question, he answers it.

“I don’t want you to have any pretensions about me,” He says softly. Elain doesn’t know how to respond to that, but she doesn’t have to. “I’ve killed, and I’ll kill again in this war, and I won’t have any regrets about the vast majority of them. I’m from a family of brutes who won’t hesitate to hurt me or anyone I care about, and I’ve let a man who was my friend become something even worse, something I don’t even recognize.”

He pauses, as though his list of sins grows more painful.

“I’ve been complicit in terrible things. Everything with Hybern is my fault. I saw it coming, I heard Ianthe pouring poison in Tamlin’s ear and was too cowardly to stop it, bit my tongue a thousand times when I knew it was wrong. I let him convince me—I convinced myself—it would be worth it to bring Feyre back against her will, that that would make things right. I let your sister suffer and waste away when I should have stopped it.”

“So did I.”

He stops, and rendering him silent feels like some strange victory.

"What?"

"Letting Feyre suffer when you should have stopped it," Elain says. "I did too."

He doesn't respond, and Elain looks at the rag in her hand. “Nesta and I let Feyre risk her life every day to keep us alive when we were poor, and we never helped, and we never said thank you. I imagine that sounds tame in comparison to the horrors you’ve seen, but it was easier to pretend it wasn’t happening, that everything was fine, than to face that shame, to step outside of what was easy for me.” Elain takes a moment to breathe, clutching the damp rag in her hands. Lucien’s face is unreadable, but he’s sitting up, leaning in towards her.

“And I regret it, of course, I’m ashamed of how Nesta and I acted. But I don’t know that I’m any different now, any stronger, that I wouldn’t act exactly the same way if you put me in that situation again. I haven’t exactly had to make any hard decisions since then, and Feyre’s never around for me to… make amends, I guess. Talk to her about it.”

The words feel stupid and inadequate as they tumble out of her and she realizes that she has never told anyone this, never even broached the concept, not with Nesta or Mor or even Grayson. Part of her wants to pretend she has no idea why she’s just laid her greatest shame before this _stranger_ , wants to think it’s some magical mating bond compulsion, but if she is being honest with herself, she knows exactly why she’s done it.

Elain looks from his metal eye to his warm brown one. “You shouldn’t have any pretensions about me, either.”

Elain is not stupid. She knows how she is perceived: as the gentle one, sweet and harmless and helpless. And she sometimes thinks even Nesta, who loves her more and knows her better than anyone else ever has, does not completely see past that _idea_ of Elain, does not think to look. No one ever did. No one had ever noticed that Elain could be as selfish and strange and cruel as she could be gentle and caring and kind. If one thing had sat badly in her heart about Grayson, it was that; that he looked at her with pure adoration, but he was not looking at _her_ so much as who he _thought_ she was, some pure angelic creature that did not really exist. She does not think she could bear that from the man in front of her, not when he is so likewise determined to make her aware of his own faults.

Lucien is staring at her with such inscrutable intensity that it becomes painful to hold his gaze, and Elain quickly leans in and dabs at the final bit of blood, trying to ignore his scent. The room is suddenly too small and too hot and her words still seem to sit in the air, suffocating her, and she makes a fervent wish to take them back, but there is nothing for it now but to escape them, to leave and pretend she’d never come. Anything to escape the way he’s looking at her right now, the unbearable closenes.

“All clean,” she declares with a pained smile, rising from the bed.

He catches her wrist.

The metal eye makes that faint whirring noise as it refocuses on her. “Thank you,” he says, so softly she might not have heard with her human ears. She knows what he means, knows that there are more things contained in those two words than simple gratitude. Elain means to say _you’re welcome_ , but the insufficiency of the phrase makes it stick in her throat, and she doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything, his grip hot against her skin.

Slowly, deliberately, he uses his other hand to turn hers over, palm up, and raises it to his mouth. He presses a whisper of a kiss to the inside of her wrist, just where the pulse thrums under the skin. She feels the bond in her chest give the faintest shiver at the contact, and bites her lip to stifle a gasp.

Once, when she was young, she’d come across an old well in the woods, and thrown a rock down it to listen for how deep it went. Elain remembers the growing trepidation, the feeling of sick suspension as the rock fell, and fell, and _kept falling_ , and she heard nothing for long, agonizing minutes as how impossibly deep the hole was impressed upon her moment by moment, and Elain thought it might have been a hole to the center of the world and beyond.

Lucien presses his lips her wrist and it feels just the same, the unfathomable vastness of— _something_ , this wild and magic thing between them, their _possibility_ , whatever it is he’s trying to communicate with the kiss—sinking into her bones, making her sick and giddy all at once.

It had been foolish of her, to not fear this meeting.

She draws back from him like she’s been burned. “I have to go,” she breathes, and he makes no effort to stop her.

“Goodbye, Elain,” he says simply, as she reaches the door. It makes her pause—not the words, but the finality in them. He is saying _goodbye_ like he will never see her again. Which very well may be, she supposes. They are fighting in a war that has only just begun. Her hand tightens on the handle.

She forces herself to turn back around and face him as she opens the door. “Goodbye, Lucien.”

The door clicks closed behind her.

****************

The next morning it is Feyre who fetches him, the decision apparently made that they will return to the Spring Court and see what there is to be salvaged from the damage. If she notices that there is a bloody basin on his bedside table that belongs in the foyer, or that Lucien conspicuously has two jackets, the one in his hand thick with the scent of honeysuckle and lilac, she narrows her eyes and says nothing. 

 

 

 

Come party with me on [tumblr](https://valamerys.tumblr.com/) for more Elucien :)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter alone is almost as long as any of the other whole fics I've written for this fandom, lmao. goodbye forever, this fic will kill me.


	3. Chapter 3

The war lasts for two years.

Which is, of course, to say nothing of the complicated back and forth specifics, a web of alliances and denials and bloodshed and threats and diplomacy in which Feyre and Rhysand make themselves key players once the Spring Court charade inevitably disintegrates. High Lords band together, or fall apart, gather armies or lose them in battle. Things are lost: artifacts, hard-defended outposts, nights of sleep Lucien will never make up, at this rate; and things are gained: territory, loyalties of high fae and lesser fae and humans alike, great and terrible secrets of old magic as both sides scramble for any footing they can get against the other.

With his list of traumas as long as it is, it almost seems impossible that there could be any combination of pain he is not familiar with, but Lucien knows instinctively that Tamlin’s face when he finally realizes the betrayal will haunt him.

He and Feyre rebuild something like a friendship. Mostly he marvels at the transformation she’s made from prickly mortal to the cunning, passionate, wrought-steel high lady she’s become—he and Tamlin, he knows, can take no credit at all for the development, and perhaps the only person who can spends an awful lot of energy openly glaring at Lucien whenever their presences in Feyre’s orbit overlap. The High Lord of Night has been keeping a staggering number of secrets, as Lucien discovers, but Lucien is hard-pressed to cede any ground in his opinion of Rhysand as the atrocities of war rack up around them. But nonetheless, it is clear the High Lord is loyal beyond all comprehension to Feyre, and for Lucien, that is enough. It  _ has _ to be enough; they have enough enemies without hating each other.

Lucien feels sometimes that he is not fighting in the war at all, but rather is a ghost with a front-row seat, and his dreams only serve to make the feeling stronger. Elain has snuck into his sleep for years now, even before Hybern, glimpses of flowers and worn wood and her tiny, pale hands. Whatever she has seen of him in return, he hopes it has not been too terrible. He turns her visit to him in the Night Court over and over in his head, pours over the memory like a man hoarding gold, selfish and secret. He remembers and reremembers the tone of her voice and the light falling on her face until he is no longer entirely sure what was real and what he has invented in the stolen twilight moments he has to close his eyes and think about her.

He comes close to Elain a few times during the war—they are on the same battlefield, or in the same castle, and the bond swells with proximity and he can feel her fear— but for two years, he doesn’t see her.

In the end, Hybern is defeated, and Jurian and the other horrors with him. Tamlin sees the error of his ways far too late, of course, but makes enough of an attempt to rectify his alliances that he earns banishment rather than imprisonment or execution. Lucien is forced to be the person who steers the tattered remnants of the Spring Court in the aftermath, the only high-ranking courtier there  _ left _ after Ianthe’s (too slow) death at Rhysand’s hands.

Weeks pass as the uncertain, messy peace sets in. Lucien is getting very little sleep, but one day when he drags his eyes from the longwinded political document on his desk, he can’t help but notice through the window how overgrown the manor gardens have gotten. Still, they’re pretty, and he tries—a fumbling thing; even after years he doesn’t  _ really _ understand how the bond works, only that it is sometimes the only thing that feels real to him—tries to send her images of it, the reds and purples and the birdsong in the distance, thinking, even as it feels a little foolish, that she would like it. He waits for a moment, watching the sunlight glare off the glass panes, and little by little he feels something in return, a faint warmth that tugs a smile to his face.

Something compels him to rise, muscles protesting after hours at his desk, and throw open the window. Lucien is so used to the fragrance of the fresh air of the Spring Court that he usually doesn’t notice it, but the mingling notes of rose and tulip and lilac hit him now, make him think of her scent. It occurs to him fully for the first time that the war is truly over, that there is no pressing threat keeping them desperately running around Prythian anymore.

He could, in theory, show her the gardens in person.

 

**********************

 

“Pass the eggs, Cas,” Nesta says, pointing a piece of bacon in his direction.

“Maybe if you ask nicely.”

Elain sees Mor roll her eyes across the table and is tempted to copy her. Feyre is ignoring the exchange completely, which is all any of them can really do at this point in Nesta and Cassian’s never-ending cycle of insult and seduction. Elain wonders, not for the first time, if the daily family breakfasts they have adopted are  _ really _ a good idea.

Nesta looks pointedly at Cassian. “ _ Please _ pass the eggs, you giant prick.”

“Well  _ that _ just set you back  _ several _ niceness points,” Cassian says. “My egg-passing price has gone up to a kiss.”

“No kissing at the table,” Rhysand says absently, nose buried in a document so long that it runs onto the floor.

“You kiss Feyre at the table all the time,” Cassian says, sounding genuinely disappointed.

Rhysand raises his head to look adoringly at his wife. “True.” He leans over and kisses her on the cheek swiftly to demonstrate Cassian’s point. “However, Feyre and I are capable of controlling ourselves, unlike some people.”

Last week Cassian had pulled something similar, and it had ended after some escalation with Nesta basically on his lap, kissing him with enough tongue that Amren had simply gotten up and left, and Mor had protested heartily that she was losing her appetite while Rhysand laughed and Azriel tried not to.

Amren jams an elbow in Cassian’s side as she leans over to take the eggs from him. “Not my leverage!” he protests, jokingly trying to stop her as she shoves said leverage at Nesta.

“There. Everyone has eggs, and no one’s going to fuck on the breakfast table.” Amen says flatly.

At the door, Cerridwen peeks in and makes some gesture towards the high lord. He winnows over to speak with her as Nesta spoons scrambled eggs onto her plate, while somehow also giving Cassian a smirk and an obscene gesture.

Nesta has come out of the war with Illyrian warrior tattoos and close-cropped hair, her and Cassian’s scents always lingering on one another. She’d had a hard transition at first, but it’s overwhelming how  _ right _ the new Nesta is, how her body was made for fighting leathers and weapons, how her magic is a wild animal that takes chunks out of men and mountains alike. Now that the war has ended, it is only increasingly obvious how well she fits in with the Night Court’s strange found family, even regardless of her courtship with Cassian. She proved to be adept at strategizing maneuverings for Rhys’s armies, and sometimes helps Azriel go undercover—No one would suspect the pretty High Fae lady of being as cutthroat as the scarred Illyrian warlord, but Nesta spent the war defying expectations, and never more spectacularly than when she ripped the King of Hybern’s throat out.

“It might be a little late for that, Amren,” Elain says, playing with the hashbrowns  on her plate. “I don’t believe for a second that with all these couples in the house none of them have ever had sex on this table.” Azriel laughs the loudest at that, which is fairly damning, particularly when Mor goes a little pink. Elain smiles, and if it’s a little bitter, she tries to hide the fact by taking a bite of hashbrowns.

Azriel and Mor’s obvious general happiness (and Feyre and Rhysand’s, and Cassian and Nesta’s, even if theirs is an oddly combative happiness) is enviable. It’s not that Elain wants a relationship, she tells herself—relationships make her think of Graysen, which even now makes her feel a little ill with the guilt of knowing he must assume the worst, must have searched for her—it’s their  _ connectedness _ , the way they fit, as pairs and as friends both. All of them have an unshakeable center, a sense of belonging within themselves that  _ makes _ their relationships enviable.

Elain feels adrift by comparison.

She fought in the war too, certainly. Her physical ability is meagre, considering the training they’d received—nothing to Nesta’s. And Elain is still without any particular magical abilities; it had been two years, and certainly anything else she’d been able to wrangle from the cauldron would have shown itself by now. Rhysand had eventually made her an Emissary—Elain was considerably better at navigating the subtle world of finicky courtiers and long formal events than fighting, working to flirt information out of half-drunk fae and secure alliances with other courts. Feeling useful to the cause helped, but she is certain it is still glaring that she has not fit into this new world easily, perpetually ill-at-ease and cold, always on some slight disconnect from the Night Court and the rest of the inner circle however hard she smiles and tries to hide it.

Rhysand returns to the table, slipping something next to Elain’s plate so quickly she almost misses it before he retakes his place at Feyre’s side.

“Az, how did your trip north go yesterday? I didn’t get a chance to ask.” Rhysand’s question and Azriel’s answer become background noise as Elain picks up the envelope slowly. It’s heavier than she expects, the paper cream with gilt gold edges. The gold makes her think of the spring court, she thinks as she fumbles to tears it open. She remembers the glint of their spears and breastplates in the battle. She remembers Lucien’s eye.

The bond rests in her chest, a familiar thing now, usually a gentle, quiet hum. She tries not to think about it too often—that feeling of endlessness she’d experienced when he’d kissed her wrist had made her toss and turn at night for weeks, and even years after the fact, the memory of being close to him inspires such confused want it borders on some kind of terror. Sure enough, the stationary is embossed with the spring court’s symbol, and Elain unfolds the paper unsure if she’s elated or horrifed.  _ Elain Archeron, _ it reads, in a slanted, somewhat messy hand _ , As Emissary of the Night Court, your presence is formally requested for the purpose of rebuilding diplomatic relations between the Spring Court and your own. Hybern’s forces have devastated our lands, and there is much work to be done to alleviate the damage of the war. _

This is true enough. Elain has learned, amongst a great many other things, that wars do not really  _ end _ . They  _ deescalate _ , the threats get less urgent once the primary evil has been stopped, but independent squadrons of Hybern’s forces still run amok on both sides of the wall, nasty creatures he’d unleashed still stalk the forests, and there is both physical rebuilding to be done where there were battles and diplomatic rebuilding to be done amongst courts that had disagreed—the Spring Court, in particular, was victim to both. Even if it is nice to no longer have everyone in constant mortal danger, there is no end to the work to be done everywhere in Prythian.

_ We wish to strengthen and maintain our alliances as the rebuilding process moves forward, and receive input from other courts regarding our leadership in this tumultuous time. _

_ Leadership _ . Elain recalls with a wince that the Spring Court is still without a high lord since Tamlin’s banishment. Is Lucien running the Spring Court himself? There’s another paragraph or two of formal gibberish involving words like  _ unity _ and  _ cooperation,  _ and at the bottom of the letter, a signature.  _ His _ signature. Elain scans the document again and again, not really reading it as warring emotions surge in her throat. It occurs to her a moment too late that she perhaps should make an effort to be discreet about it, when Nesta’s eyes land on the paper and on Elain’s expression and narrow.

“Elain,” Nesta says sharply, speaking over Rhysand, “What’s that?”

Elain opens her mouth, but doesn’t say anything. Her eyes flicker to Rhysand—he’d made an effort not to draw attention to the envelope, did he know what it was? Feyre next to him looks equally unperturbed, does she?

“Elain got mail,” Rhysand offers simply when Elain continues to not answer. Feyre continues eating—she  _ must _ know, to act so unconcerned.

“Mail?” Nesta repeats.

Cassian frowns. “What is it, Elain?”

Elain looks down at the phrase  _ Diplomatic Relations _ again.

“I’ve… been invited to the Spring Court.” She says numbly.

Nesta chokes on her mouthful of hard-won eggs. “What?! Why?” She glares at the letter, and then at Rhysand, as if he is also at fault for delivering it.

“Why do you think, Nesta?” Cassian almost laughs as he says it. “Her mate is there.”

Nesta goes as rigid and dark-eyed at the mention of Lucien as she did two years ago. “So what? Elain is perfectly happy here with us.”

“It’s… a diplomatic trip,” Elain says softly, because that’s such an  _ excuse _ it’s mortifying to even say it out loud. No one seems to hear her over their own reactions.

“I can’t guarantee that the Spring Court is safe,” Azriel says warily. “Their forces are thin, their borders ill-protected against the remnants of Hybern’s forces.”

“Is  _ Lucien _ safe?” Mor asks quickly, eyes darting to Feyre. “He may have fought on our side, but I don’t know that I consider him trustworthy.”

“Exactly,” Nesta fumes.

“Let the girl go.” Amren says, swirling her mugful of blood like wine. “Everyone should spend more time in degenerate places. It builds character.”

Elain’s face is hot, and she can’t tear her gaze away from Lucien’s name on the parchment as argument swells around her, Nesta’s protestations and Rhys’ half-hearted defenses blurring together. She wishes she could winnow, leave all this with just the blink of an eye.

“Even if it  _ was _ technically safe, the Spring Court can be…” Azriel trails off.

“Barbaric,” Mor finishes, eyes guarded with concern as she looks at Elain.

_ Barbaric _ , as though the Illyrian camps they all spend so much time in are not, as though what they have all done in the war is not. They wouldn’t object if Nesta wanted to go, Elain thinks, or Feyre. And yes, she is no warrior, and certainly no High Lady, but it still stings like salt in a wound to be reminded that even after all this time she is still  _ the delicate one _ to them, to be protected and coddled from things that are  _ barbaric _ . Suddenly, the well-meaning worry in Mor’s eyes makes Elain feel ill.

The memory of Lucien’s gaze on her floods her mind, and she swears she can hear his metal eye whirring across two years of time. She’d thought the look unreadable at the time, but now, feeling smaller and smaller at this stupid table, she thinks he was looking at her like she might have done anything. Been capable of anything. She wants that to be true.

Elain stands, making sure her chair scrapes horribly against the stone floor as she does, the screeching sound calling them all to a ceasefire.

“Thank you all for your concern,” she says gently. “But the only person I’d like to discuss this with is Feyre.”

Feyre, who hasn’t spoken one way or the other. One thick eyebrow raises, and she stands slowly, walks past their seated family to Elain with all the gravitas she’s earned over the past two years.

“Shall we, then?” She asks, holding out a hand. Nesta opens her mouth to object, but Elain takes the proffered hand and feels the world fall away as Feyre transports them.

When Elain recovers from the missed-stairstep feeling that winnowing always incurs in her, they are in a sitting room upstairs, far from the dissenting voices of the breakfast table, and Elain feels a weight fall from her shoulders, the invitation still clutched in her hand. Feyre’s face has given way to faint amusement as she settles into a broad armchair like it’s her throne in the Court of Nightmares, and Elain can’t help but scowl a little.

She holds up the invitation. “You knew he was going to do this, didn’t you?”

“It was my suggestion,” Feyre says evenly. “He can’t leave the Spring Court for the time being, but he wanted to see you, and asked my advice on what the least off-putting way to ask you to visit him was.”

“And you came up with a fake diplomatic mission?” Elain asks in disbelief, and remnant embarrassment from breakfast. “Could you possibly have found a  _ more _ transparent excuse for him to use?”

Feyre gives Elain an unimpressed look, and for a moment she seems so like Nesta it’s almost funny. “You’re  _ mates _ , Elain, and everyone knows it.  _ Any _ justification to put you both in the same room would be a transparent excuse for you to fall in love with each other.”

Elain feels herself redden furiously. “I don’t know that I’m going to—“

“Do you want to go?” Feyre asks bluntly.

Elain is caught up short. She means to say  _ I don’t know  _ or  _ I need time to think about it _ , which would be the appropriate answers, particularly since, as far as anyone else knows, the last time she saw Lucien was when they pulled her out of the cauldron. But feigning indecision would be a lie, and she can’t bring herself to pretend.

“Yes,” Elain says breathlessly.

She should say no, she knows. It's absurd to upend her life, even if it's ultimately only for a week or two, for the sake of a man she's spoken to one time, especially when there is still so much to be done in Velaris. But the dissatisfaction she feels here, the coldness the cauldron put in her limbs that neither war nor peace has warmed, the gentle chafe she feels even amongst these people she loves so much--

It is unlikely Lucien, or this bond she still does not fully understand, is the answer. But it is a place to start looking.

“Yes, I want to go to the Spring Court.”

 

Come party with me on [tumblr](https://valamerys.tumblr.com/) for more Elucien :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM SORRY THIS IS SHORTISH AND NOT VERY JUICY. The Good Shit is coming, I promise, just had to fast-forward through the war (where, conveniently, no one died or was excessively traumatized, just like i'm SURE will happen in canon! lmao) and set everything up first.
> 
> (Note: ch 1-4 were posted in Oct '16 and edited/ updated April '17)


	4. Chapter 4

That Lucien is expecting it makes the suddenness of the bond no less bracing when Feyre winnows Elain to the Spring Court.

Lucien is in his office on the first floor, filling out yet more paperwork when fingers of warmth wind through his chest and suddenly he can _breathe;_ the bond swells like an ocean tide and fresh  _awareness_  of Elain floods his senses, makes him shiver.

He tries to seem collected as he rises and heads for the front entryway—Feyre helped construct the wards on the manor when they had to be completely redone after the war; she’s the only person in Prythian who can winnow straight into the house from so far away. He hears their voices, though, before he sees them.

“Kind of dour, don’t you think? So much dark wood.” Lucien frowns. It’s a male voice he doesn’t recognize. Feyre hadn’t mentioned bringing anyone else.

“What are you, some kind of interior designer now?” He’s not sure whose voice that is either—it sounds a little like Feyre’s, but it’s harsher.

“What, you don’t think I could be? I have excellent taste in wallpaper.”

“I don’t believe you know the difference between chartreuse and mauve.”

“Those are colors, right?”

“Exactly my point.”

“Cassian, Nesta,” That voice is Feyre, “You promised no bickering.”

Cassian lets out an offended noise. “I am completely innocent in this scenario! I can’t help it if your demon sister won’t let me entertain thoughts of an artistic calling.”

Lucien opens the doors and pastes on a polite smile as four sets of eyes focus on him. “Feyre.” He addresses the high Lady first, his eyes flickering over Nesta and Cassian before he lets himself look at Elain, who has been silent.

“Hello, Elain,” he says.

“Hello,” she replies softly.

Nesta clears her throat loudly.

“Lucien,” Feyre says, “This is our sister Nesta.”

Technically, they’ve met, when she screamed at him and pulled Elain out of his arms. But if there’s been a collective decision made to pretend that didn’t happen for propriety’s sake, Lucien won’t upset it. “Pleasure to meet you,” he says politely, although it isn’t really; her eyes are narrowed in a way that suggests she feels the same way towards him now as she did then.

She bares her teeth in an approximation of a smile. “Likewise.” Lucien does not miss that she orients herself slightly between him and Elain.

Feyre indicates the Illyrian, “And this is—”

“Cassian,” The Illyrian finishes, smiling broadly as he extends a hand. Lucien shakes it gingerly. “I like the eye. Very spooky.”

“Thank you,” Lucien replies, trying not to stare as he steps back. Try as he might not to be bothered, Illyrians are grating to Lucien’s distinctly High Fae sensibilities. They’re loud, and they move too quickly, too roughly, with an unseemly sense of urgency. This one ruffles his great black wings, and Lucien can’t help but think that he should ask Alis to move any particularly fragile vases out of harm’s way for the duration of his stay. “I can show you all to your rooms, if you’d like—“

“Why don’t you give us a tour, Lucien?” Feyre asks, pure politeness that would be suspect even if she didn’t know the manor as well as anyone.

Lucien looks at Elain again, like he’s helpless not to, like gravity itself is trying to get him to look at her. She says nothing, looking at him with her achingly dark brown eyes.

“Of course,” Lucien says, mastering himself again. “Feyre, can I speak to you for a moment first?”

Feyre suppresses a smile, like she’s trying not to laugh at Lucien’s obvious helplessness in the presence of her sisters, but she follows him back out willingly enough. The sounds of Nesta and Cassian’s voices start up again, but he ignores them as he shuts the door.

“Sorry about Nesta,” Feyre says, eyes glinting with mirth. “She wouldn’t take no for an answer. And we wouldn’t want it to be _too_ easy for you and Elain to fall in love with each other.”

Lucien wants to protest that statement in some way, but he doesn’t know how. Instead he says, “I didn’t know any of the Illyrians would be coming.”

“ _Cassian_ is here for protection.” Feyre says, drawing out his name.

Lucien tries, and fails, not to be insulted. “That isn’t necessary,” he says darkly, “You’re all perfectly safe here, you have my word.”

Feyre laughs. “He’s not here for _our_ protection, idiot, he’s here for yours. I’ve asked him to help keep Nesta off your back. Be grateful he doesn’t dislike you as much as Rhys does.”

That is not a comforting statement, and it combines in Lucien’s gut with a general terrible foreboding he feels coming to a head. “This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have done this.” 

Feyre groans. “ _No_ , Lucien, absolutely no getting cold feet. She’s _excited_ to be here, I promise.”

“Is she?” He asks hollowly, thinking of her unreadable gaze.

“ _Yes,_ ” Feyre says emphatically. “She’s just a little embarrassed, still thinks the mate thing is weird.”

He puffs out a sigh, looks pointedly at Feyre. “Frankly, I don’t know how anyone _doesn’t_ find it strange.” He can _feel_  Elain still standing in the foyer, and he'd almost forgotten how unnerving the sensation is. Not _bad_ , of course not, because it's _her_ , but... strange.

“Well why don’t we go and talk to her about it?” Feyre says brightly, flinging the doors back open before he can protest. “That’s all taken care of,” she announces broadly, Cassian and Nesta quite clearly quickly breaking off a heated conversation as Feyre strides back towards her family and Lucien has no choice but to follow. He makes to respond, but Feyre goes on, suddenly holding a stack of papers—pulled from a pocket dimension?— “Oh, darn, I _just_ remembered I need to file these for Rhys while I’m here. I’ll have to be in the office instead.” Feyre starts for the door, calling over her shoulder. “Nesta, Cassian, why don’t you come help me?”

Feyre's half-hearted charade to get he and Elain alone together is so embarrassingly transparent Lucien has to take a moment to stare at the ceiling.

“No thank you, Feyre. I’d like to see the manor,” Nesta says, every word pointed and cold as the Winter Court, and Lucien correctly intuits that Cassian, who looks like he’s in pain with the effort of not laughing at both sisters, will go where Nesta goes. Feyre is apparently unsurprised, giving Lucien an amused _I-did-my-best_ smile as she passes him on her way out. “Well, you all have fun, then, and I’ll see you at dinner.”

Elain doesn’t say much of anything as Lucien shows them where to find the drawing room, the kitchens, the stable, and the ballroom. The few servants they pass stare openly at the Illyrian, though Cassian either doesn’t notice or pretends not to.

“The gallery is just up those stairs. Feyre used to spend much of her time in it.” Lucien says, gesturing towards the double doors at the top of the landing.

It is strange, to speak of Feyre’s time in the Spring Court as though she merely used to live here, not acknowledging the alternating horror and traitorous pretense her stays existed within. If his guests have the same thoughts, they don’t betray it—Nesta still looks a misstep away from killing him, and Elain’s face is still blank.

“Some of her old paintings are hung up there,” Lucien adds, “including a very fetching rendering of me as a pig. You might appreciate it, Nesta.”

Cassian laughs, and out of the corner of his eye, Lucien sees Elain crack a grin. It’s almost alarming, how swift and strong the satisfaction is that comes from making her smile.

“M-my lord,” Lucien turns to see a petite, greenish lesser fae with huge, droopy ears behind him.

“Jerim,” He greets him with a nod. “Something wrong?”

The lesser fae holds up an envelope. “This just came from the Dawn court,” he wheezes, voice nasally. “I’m afraid it’s urgent.” 

Lucien resists the urge to sigh in frustration. He should have guessed he wouldn’t make it twenty minutes without being interrupted. “I’m sorry,” He says, turning automatically to Elain. “This shouldn’t take long. Jerim,” The fae perks up. “Please tell Alis I need her to show Feyre’s sisters to their rooms.”

Elain’s expression still betrays nothing as Lucien makes hasty introductions to Alis before retreating to his office to read and sign what is almost certainly the dullest document he’s ever laid hands on.

 

**********************

 

Some time later, Lucien stands outside Elain’s door for a full three minutes before raising his hand to knock.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t do that.”

Cassian is standing some distance behind him, leaning against the wall so comfortably he might have been born in the Spring Court.

“Why not?”

“Nesta’s in there with her. Probably in case you decide to do exactly what you’re doing right now.”

Lucien doesn’t know who to be more annoyed with: Nesta, for thinking Elain needs a chaperone, Cassian, for being so endlessly, smugly amused by this situation he has no stake in, or Feyre, for bringing them both knowing exactly how Lucien would feel about it.

“Elain is an adult who may choose to speak to me or not according to her own wishes, not her sister’s,” He says stiffly. “And I’m not afraid of Nesta.”

Cassian lets out a laugh that’s more like a choke. “You’re dumber than I thought, fox-face.” He shoves off the wall to lean in closer to Lucien, like he’s sharing a secret. “Let me tell you, as, quantifiably, Nesta’s favorite male, I am still stone-cold terrified of her. You, as maybe her least favorite, should be running to the other side of the country.” He still looks like he’s on the verge of laughing. “But listen, I feel for you, really, I do—“

“Thanks,” Lucien says dryly.

“—so I got this one. Go stand right around the corner, wait a few minutes so it doesn’t seem like we’re colluding.”

“What?”

Cassian knocks heavily on the door, smirking terribly. “Go,” He stage-whispers, pointing to where the hallway curves away. Lucien is so confused he doesn’t move, until the door opens and his instincts have the decency to winnow him out of eyesight.

“Miss me already, Cas?” It’s Nesta’s condescending voice at the door, although Lucien can no longer see anything, staring at the wallpaper in front of him.

“Every moment, sweetheart.” Cassian responds glibly. “And,” his voice drops lower, “We have time to kill before dinner, and I need your help with something.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m worried there’s something wrong with the bed they gave me,” The voice grows muffled, like he’s speaking an inch from her ear, “I think we should… test it out, just to make sure.” This is followed with what’s Lucien’s pretty sure are kissing noises.

Lucien feels _ridiculous_ ; he shouldn’t have to employ a horny Illyrian just to get the opportunity to ask a woman who’s staying in his own house to go on a walk with him. But still, he hears Nesta hesitate and feels enormously, reluctantly grateful for Cassian’s being.

“Cas,” Nesta says, equal parts annoyance and burgeoning surrender as he kisses down her neck. She says something else so quiet Lucien misses it, and Cassian’s wings ruffle. 

“It’s fine, love, I’m sure he’s still in that meeting, or whatever it was. You can’t be her bodyguard for the entire time we’re here.” Another kissing noise, and another, and he hears a sharp, feminine sigh.

“You win,” Nesta grumbles. “One minute.” she brushes back into the room with a creak of the door. He can hear the indistinct sound of Elain’s voice mingle with her sister’s, and it is stupid how even that affects him, makes his chest seize up with wanting. He barely breathes as the door closes again and Nesta and Cassian banter their way down the hall in the opposite direction. Lucien dares to look out from behind the wall at them just as they reach the end, and Cassian, an arm around Nesta, turns to flash him a grin over his shoulder.

Once they’re out of sight, Lucien ducks back behind the wall and counts down from sixty, pretending to himself he’s not suddenly nervous. Finally, he straightens up, bracing himself, and heads for the door.

Which opens, when Lucien is not ten feet from it. Elain closes it behind her before she sees him, stopping cold when she does. Lucien clears his throat.

“Hello.”

“Oh,” Elain says. “Hello. I was just, um, going to walk in the gardens.” she’s turning a pretty shade of pink, clutching at the shawl and the book she’s holding like lifelines.

“I was going to ask you to go for a walk in the gardens with me,” Lucien says slowly, “So I suppose that works out. Unless you’d rather go by yourself, in which case I won’t impose—“

“No,” Elain blurts quickly, “I mean yes, please, I’d like to… walk with you.” She’s past pink into red-faced, now, and Lucien finds it funny, and strangely charming, how flustered she is, after she so boldly sought him out last time. He tries, clumsily, to send her relaxation, comfort through the bond—difficult, considering Lucien doesn’t feel particularly relaxed either. He doesn’t know what she receives, but her eyes widen just a fraction at him as he steps closer and wordlessly offers her his arm.

Elain takes it with one tentative hand, her grip warm through the fabric of his shirt.

“I hope I’m not… keeping you from anything important.” Elain says timidly.

“Not at all.”

It feels strange to have her by his side. _Good_ , certainly, satisfying in a raw way, but he is so used to the bond being a distant thing, a faint tie to something far away. With Elain next to him, the universe is shrunk to just the space around the two of them, every flicker of feeling between them magnified. The bond is a sensitive thing with their fresh nearness; he can feel Elain’s heart hammering in her chest.

“Cassian is quite something,” He says conversationally, trying to put her more at ease as they start down the stairs. “I’ve never met an Illyrian up close before, unless you count Rhysand.”

“He and Nesta are good for each other.” Elain says quietly.

“To a dangerous degree, it would seem.”

Elain gives a sly smile at that, and he’s struck again by what a victory that feels like. She has been avoiding his gaze, but she meets it now, expression apologetic. “I’m sorry about Nesta, by the way. She’ll…get over it.”

_It,_ this, them. Her warm hand on his arm. “She’s just trying to protect you. I can’t possibly hold that against her.”

Elain falls silent for a moment, and Lucien thinks he can sense her looking sidelong at him from under her lashes. Finally she asks, “Is it hard not having a High Lord here?”

He wonders if it’s the bags under his eyes she’s looking at. “Yes,” he says readily, as a lesser fae messenger stares openly at them in passing.

“Do you know who the new one is yet? It has to be a relative of Tamlin’s, doesn’t it?”

“Closest male relative,” Lucien says rotely. This subject has been the bane of his waking hours since the war ended; he has the minutiae of it all but memorized. “We had to reach quite far back in his family tree to find _anyone_ , and the process of power transfer has been…” He grimaces, “slow.”

Elain doesn’t get the chance to respond, because Lucien breaks away gently from her grip to wrench open the massive back door, the dark wood groaning.

“By all accounts, I should have made this part of the tour,” He says sheepishly, as the afternoon sunlight steams into the house and makes Elain squint. “But I was hoping I’d get to show you them privately. They’re the best part of the house, really.”

Lucien lets her go first, trailing after her down the steps and onto the stone patio, her eyes flickering across dappled yellows and blues and greens as the outdoor air envelopes them. Lucien feels almost embarrassed at how messy they’ve become, weeds choking all but the hardiest of the flowers, but even the weeds are vibrant as they reclaim their territory.

Elan reaches a hand to run across the fuzzy stem of a cattail, nestled in a drooping red hibiscus. “They’re beautiful.”

“They’re yours.” She turns to look at him, those perfect cupid’s-bow lips falling open just slightly. “If you want them,” he adds quickly. “Feyre tells me you’re something of a gardening expert, so if you’d like to try to make something of them, we could sorely use it.”

She frowns. “Thank you,” she says softly, but something is wrong, her tone is too flat, her face too pale as she stares at the flowers.

Lucien steps closer on instinct. “Elain? Are you alright?”

Elain shakes her head slowly, her arms going around herself. “It’s just… I know these gardens,” she murmurs, voice thick and quiet. “I’ve known them all my life.” She walks around the hedge, and Lucien follows her, sees her gesture towards the arbor choked with ivy. “Those grow purple flowers in the summer months,” she says, and then turns to the corner with the stone bench. “There used to be Hydrangeas there, blue and pink ones. And there,” She points at an aging ash stump near the fountain. “I remember when that was a healthy tree. It was hit with lightning, wasn’t it? Some six or seven years ago?”

Lucien has gone very still, half-certain he knows what has happened, but afraid to speak, like it will break some spell cast over them.

“It was you,” Elain says softly. “I saw what you saw, in my dreams. And you saw this place.”

Whatever tentative normalcy they have built up since her arrival fractures, leaves them confronted with this raw, strange truth. Lucien should not be surprised; he has wondered before what she has seen from him, and cauldron knows he has spent plenty of time in this garden, but the strange circularity of it takes his breath away.

Elain does the last thing Luicen expects and _laughs,_ perhaps a little too sharply. “This place is why I care for gardening at all. I started planting seeds as a little girl because I wanted to make my family’s garden look like this one.” She gestures broadly at the foliage around them, the flower stalks bending gently in the wind. “I was always trying to get here,” She falters, humor evaporating. “To you.”

Lucien feels a swift, crushing impulse to close the space between them and kiss her, and manages not to at the price of standing there, staring like an idiot, instead.

Elain searches his gaze. “I was hoping we could do this… normally, court each other like anyone else,” She says at last, softly. She allows herself a small smile. “But I suppose there was never any chance of that.”

Because they’ve been in each others’ dreams, each others’ blood, for years and years, because they are tied together in a way that they don’t, can’t, fully understand. He moves closer to her—the urge to kiss her hasn’t abated, and he makes a conscious effort not to let his eyes linger on her lips—and tries to speak. Lucien has so few things he’s proud of, and his so-called silver tongue is foremost among them; words are his friends and his weapons, sometimes his only in either category, and it seems like such a cruel irony that she alone can render him silent, when he needs language the most.

He finally opens his mouth, and is cut off as Nesta’s voice rings across the hedges. “Elain? Elain, are you out here?”

Elain turns on instinct to the voice, but doesn’t respond, looks helplessly back at Lucien—

“There you are.” Nesta sees Elain first and Lucien, on some gut instinct he hopes is more than just cowardice, vanishes before she can register him, winnowing across the gardens. He positions himself just behind a cluster of trees, still close enough to hear them, and he can just make out Elain’s confused face as she turns to see him gone.

“Are you looking for something?” Nesta asks her, slightly edged.

“I—“ Elain pauses, brown eyes searching. “No, I… guess not.”

Nesta relaxes. “These are nice gardens.” She says, as though noticing them for the first time. She points to some bulbous purple flowers to the left. “Haycinths, right? I remember you planting some of those in father’s garden.”

“Yes,” Elain says quietly.

Lucien realizes that he’s officially eavesdropping, and quietly winnows back into the house. He thinks first to hide in his office—but Feyre is likely to still be there, and Lucien does not think he could stomach her smugness.

And if she asks him how he and Elain’s walk went, he would have no idea how to answer. 

Lucien rests his head against the wooden pillar outside the sitting room and takes a deep breath.

 

**********************

 

Invariably, Jerim finds him with a dozen new documents regarding the cities post-war reconstruction, and Lucien spends the last hour before dinner pouring over them, thinking if nothing else it might stop him from replaying Elain’s smile a thousand times over in his head. He is the last to enter the dining room.

“I’m sorry if I kept you waiting,” he says, taking his seat at the head of the table.

“You didn’t,” Nesta says darkly, meaning obviously that she could not be bothered to wait for him. She is already eating, Cassian following suit, although Feyre and Elain seem to have waited for him.

Cassian shoots Lucien a grin even as the Illyrian shifts uncomfortably in his chair, wings held forward slightly at an odd angle so they don’t hit the high, wide chair back. The spring court doesn’t have any furniture made for winged bodies. Silence but for the scraping of forks fills the room. Lucien glances at Elain, but her gaze is steadfastly locked on her place. “Did you get all your filing done, Feyre?” He asks, casting for something to fill the quiet.

“Yes, despite your organizational systems being a complete nightmare. Have they gotten worse since last time I was here?”

“Probably.”

Feyre raises her eyebrows at him, glancing at Elain and back pointedly, a question. Lucien shakes his head a fraction, trying to get her to drop it. He doesn’t miss Nesta narrow her eyes at the two of them, trying to parse their wordless communication. If anything, that emboldens him, hoping vaguely that Elain doesn’t think he disappeared earlier on account of fear of her sister.

“Elain,” He says lightly. She looks up from her plate. “I was hoping you’d accompany me on a ride tomorrow. We could see some of the court, maybe bring a picnic. There’s a freshwater spring not far off, if you’d like to go swimming—“

“No,” Elain says quickly. “Not that.”

Lucien stops short, surprised. Nesta’s eyes have gone wide and flat and Feyre sips her wine, not meeting his look of confusion. He has no idea what he’s said wrong.

“Alright,” he says cautiously, “No swimming, then.”

“Maybe I’d like to see the court too.” Nesta says, tone gone positively hostile. “I think Cassian and I should go with you.”

“Nesta,” Feyre chides gently.

Elain closes her eyes, like she’s trying to will herself away from the table.

Cassian twists with discomfort in his seat again, even as his words are easy. “I’ll take you flying tomorrow, Nes; we can see the court that way.”

She whirls on him like the statement is a betrayal. “Seriously, Cassian?”

“What?” He shifts, tries tucking his wings in with no success.

“Am I the only person who has a problem with this?” She asks the room furiously, gesturing at Lucien.

“Don’t be rude, Nesta,” Elain says through a veil of mortification.

“Rude?” Nesta asks incredulously. “The only thing that’s rude here is this _traitor_ ,” she hisses the word at Lucien, “Thinking he’s somehow entitled to you because, what, faerie magic makes him want to fuck you?”

“Nesta!” Feyre cries, as Cassian similarly objects and Elain simply puts her hands over her face, cheeks flaming—Lucien feels her agonized embarrassment surge through the bond so strongly it’s almost tangible.

“And you’re all just sitting here encouraging it!” She spits, starting to her feet and glaring at Cassian and Feyre before turning the full force of her gaze on Lucien himself. “You have a lot of nerve to invite Elain here considering everything you and your _friend_ Tamlin—” a sneer “— are responsible for.”

“If you have a problem with me, Nesta, no one is keeping you in my dining room, or in this court. You’re free to go,” Lucien says evenly, anger cold as she runs hot.

“And leave Elain here with you, right?” Nesta demands, lip curling up in disgust. “Not a chance in hell, _fox boy_.” She manages to make it sound more like an insult than usual.

“I’m not a child, Nesta!” Elain blurts, dropping her hands at last. Her face is blotchy pink, her voice wavers like she’s trying not to cry. “I chose to come here; I don’t need to be… _protected_ from him.”

Cassian looks between the sisters, as though unsure if he should intervene, and shifts again in his chair, scraping it against the floor slightly. Nesta’s expression falters only a touch. “Elain, you know I didn’t mean it like that,” She’s still too forceful, though, and tears well in Elain’s eyes.

“Didn’t you?” Lucien snarls. He realizes he was not actually angry before, because _this_ , this white fury that’s almost blinding in its intensity, is anger, not for Nesta’s opinion of him, but because Elain is upset. Someone is _making his mate cry_ and foreign urges roar to life in him to obliterate the cause.

Nesta must have some sense of self-preservation, because she locks eyes with him hatefully but doesn’t speak. Cassian moves in his chair again, the sound maddening against Lucien’s instinct-inflamed senses, and Lucien finally gets to his feet. “ALIS!” He bellows.

“Alis?” Feyre asks in confusion. Lucien ignores her as the plump woman appears in the door, looking nervously at them all.

“Alis,” Lucien says, with exaggerated, false calm, “Would you please find Cassian a bench or a stool or something else without a back to sit on? I think there’s one in the library by the window if you can’t find anything closer.”

Cassian shifts again behind him, wings rustling. “Thank you,” He says quietly. Alis nods and murmurs assent, although sparing another odd look at fuming Nesta, who is still standing, before she leaves.

“Nesta,” Lucien says, turning back, “I don’t pretend to have any claim to Elain and I’m well aware that any time and attention she chooses to grant me is a privilege.” He keeps his voice clear, his face a mask of composure. “If you take issue with my attitude or Elain’s choices and absolutely must discuss it with us you will find a _civil_ way to do so or I _will_ ask you to leave this court. Though you might consider—“ Lucien knows this will make her angry, but so be it. He’s done enough placating for a lifetime, and if she wants to fight on the dining room table, Lucien might just be mad enough to take her up on it— “That anything Elain and I do together is none of your business.”

Nesta’s mouth snaps shut, presses into a thin hard line. Lucien sits down, leans back in his chair comfortably—against his instincts, when Nesta is still standing, but he will not be the one to escalate this situation. Elain has her face rested in her hands, elbows propped on the table—he can’t see her expression, but he feels waves of embarrassment beat through the bond. 

Lucien suddenly doesn’t care about Nesta, Nesta is a stupid distraction; he wants to winnow Elain away and apologize for everyone and everything, kiss her and soothe her and get her to smile, but he definitely can’t do that, so he settles for another admonishment.

“And by the by, that was a very uncouth thing to say about mating bonds. I would suggest apologizing, if not to Elain and I, then to your High Lady, who, as I recall, based her marriage on one.”

Feyre’s face is as smooth and unaffected as Lucien’s, but he knows by now the difference between her masks, and this one is all Rhysand, all careful control over her reactions, giving nothing away—which means that there’s something _to_ give away; she’s upset.

Nesta opens her mouth, but Cassian’s hand lands gently on her arm; they make a split second of eye contact, Cassian shaking his head marginally. Nesta quiets, but the fight in her doesn’t diffuse. She exhales sharply, looks from Lucien to Feyre to Elain— and she turns on her heel and simply leaves the room, letting the door bang shut behind her.

Cassian makes to follow her, but Feyre rises fluidly, holds a hand up to stay him. “Should I—“ He asks, but Feyre shakes her head sharply. 

“Let me. Lucien, I’m sorry.” He doesn’t answer as she passes him.

“Feyre, wait,” Elain says, voice raw, and she pushes back her chair to follow her sisters. She doesn’t look at Lucien as she leaves, as though maybe she can’t bear to, almost running over a returning Alis in her haste.

“Oh,” Alis blinks at the retreating sisters, and the empty chairs, as she hauls a stool in Cassian’s direction. “Is… everything alright?”

“Just fine.” Lucien says. Cassian gets up to swap the chairs, settling onto the stool and flexing his wings as he murmurs polite thanks to Alis. He looks more unsettled than Lucien has yet seen him.

“Is Nesta always like this?” Lucien asks lightly. 

It gets a wry grin, and an answer braced with a little too much sincerity. “Only when she thinks her family’s being threatened.” 

It’s suddenly dead silent in the dining room.

Lucien reaches for his wineglass, raises it in Cassian’s direction. “To Archeron women,” He toasts.

Cassian gives a shadow of a laugh, raising his own glass. “To Archeron women.”

 

**********************

 

Lucien never gets much sleep. Nightmares chase him through the small hours of the morning, and worry about the work he’s not getting done fills in the gaps, so he’s gotten into the habit of holing himself up in his office after dinner and working until it’s so late/early he can’t function. The sheer exhaustion when he slumps into bed tends to overwhelm the worst of the dreams, and it’s, marginally, worth the constant fatigue.

Tonight he’s so consumed with _Elain_ , replaying her and Nesta’s words from earlier in his head and feeling the still-strange strength of the bond ebb in his chest, that he can’t focus on work. He abandons his post relatively early, not yet 2 am; even if he’ll toss and turn, better to be lying in bed thinking about Elain than staring at rows and rows of projected reconstruction costs thinking about Elain.

He closes the door to his office gingerly, the hallway awash in the dark blue of night as he sets off towards the stairs, making an effort to be quiet as he always does. He almost doesn’t notice her except that the bond gives a _throb_ that makes him look up—her thin frame is delicately illuminated by moonlight where she looks out onto the gardens, back to him, sitting on a loveseat that frames the wide-open second-story window.

He freezes—should he leave her be, or say something? But the decision is made when she turns too, sees him like she’s been compelled to by some higher power.

“Couldn’t sleep?” He asks softly, voice raspy with the lateness of the hour. She blinks at him for a moment.

“Nightmares.” She confesses, just as delicately. It seems like blasphemy to disturb the perfect silence of dead night with speech of any kind, even whispers.

He moves closer, slowly takes the seat next to her. “I’m sorry.”

She shrugs. “I’m used to it.”

His heart seizes at that. “What… kind of nightmares do you have?”

Elain hesitates. “It’s always the cauldron,” She says finally. “I’m still not…” She trails off, some thought getting lost as she stares into the sea of dark trees before them. “Some things are still hard for me, even after all this time. I know it shouldn’t be.”

“I still have nightmares about things that happened two hundred years ago,” Lucien offers quietly. “Trauma doesn’t run on a schedule.”

Elain does not look at him, frowning like she is weighing something. “It’s not just nightmares.”

Lucien waits.

“I… can’t…” Elain shakes her head, an escaped tuft of bronze-gold hair moving with it. She is more raw, more disheveled than he saw her earlier today. He supposes he is too, though. “I can’t stand small spaces, or water on my skin. I took sponge baths for a month afterwards, or had Mor magic me clean, because I couldn’t even bear to get in a bathtub. Even now, I put my head under and I feel like I’m right back in that castle, drowning. Dying.”

This would explain her reaction to his swimming proposal. Lucien feels passionately, brokenly useless at the revelation; he can defend her from Nesta, he cannot defend her from this. “I wish I knew how to help you.” He says softly. “If there’s anything you need, please, let me know.”

“Thank you.” Elain sighs, tucks the stray bit of hair behind her pointed ear. “I’m so sorry about dinner, by the way. I never thought Nesta would go that far.”

“It’s not your fault,” He murmurs. “I’m sorry I vanished on you earlier today. I didn’t think a confrontation would have been good for either of us, but it may have come off… avoidant, so I apologize.”

The wind outside picks up, he hears it in the rustling of the trees and thinks of their conversation in the garden. He says firmly, “If you want normal, we can do normal. Or we can try. My invitation for a picnic tomorrow still stands, and Nesta is emphatically not invited.”

Elain gives him a weak smile. “I’d like that. The picnic, I mean.”

It seems strange and foolish to talk of picnics when things constantly dance on the razor’s edge of darkness with them—nightmares and war and past sins and whatever Nesta accuses him of, whatever sadness has claimed them for its own over the past two years, or two hundred. He hates to see that thread of hard-won light go, but now, in this place of rawness and night that is not unlike her visit to him in the Night Court so long ago, there is a question he wants to ask her.

“Why have you come here, Elain?”

There are all the obvious reasons, but he needs to hear her say it, needs to understand as clearly as he can. She wets her lips, and he wonders if she has any idea of the swift heat it sends through him. 

“The same reason you invited me, I imagine. I want to know my mate.” She barely whispers the word, like it is sacred, or maybe profane. A tense smile crosses her face. “Even though I can’t seem to stop being embarrassed about it.”

He wants to reassure her that she has _nothing_ to be embarrassed about, but Elain goes on quickly. “And I wasn’t happy in the night court. Not really.”

Lucien gazes at her for a long moment. “What would make you happy?”

Elain looks into the distance, far beyond the window frame. “Once, I would have said being human again.” She pauses, and there’s something mournful in it. “For a long time, I would have said that. But I can’t go back to that now. I don’t think I’d want to even if I could; I’ve seen too much of this world to go back to one without magic. So I don’t know what would make me happy.” She tips her head to the side and looks at him, thoughtfully, sadly. “Are _you_ happy, Lucien? Now that the war’s over?”

Lucien can’t help it, a bitter half-laugh bursts out of him at the thought. “The war isn’t ever over,” he says though it. The gentle confusion on her face is endearing, and heartbreaking—she’s so young, he thinks, to think the war being over makes any difference. “The war is over when you’re human. When your lives are short enough for only one or two. But we’re immortal. There will always be another war, and another, and another. There is no end to evil in the world, and there is no end to us.” He takes a moment, a breath. “And I haven’t concerned myself with _happiness_ in a very long time.” He knows exactly how long. Since Nerissa. Although maybe that is not true—hasn’t he invited Elain here on some ridiculous prospect of such?

Her brow creases. “What is it that you… concern yourself with, then, if not happiness?”

His answer is blunt, immediate. “Survival.”

Silence stretches between them, the bond wavering like a spiderweb in a breeze. Elain is looking at him like she _wants_ to say something, do something, but isn’t sure what.

“I used to…” Lucien stalls. He knows, can feel in his bones, that if he doesn’t stop talking _right now_ he’s going to say too much, but it’s like a compulsion with her, to either say nothing or everything, and right now it feels like his chest might burst with everything he wants her to know and doesn’t know how to say. “I used to wonder why I bothered. Why survive at all, if that’s all I was doing, dragging myself from one decade to the next, costing my friends pain and seeing the nightmares stack up around me.” He can sense Elain’s growing distress next to him, even as he doesn’t look at her, but his words are like a lanced wound, horrible but necessary and too late to be stopped now— “Every time I made the choice to get up and keep going I thought about how stupid it was of me, but I could never bring myself to _not_ , could never shake the sense that there was something I was surviving for, if only I could make it long enough to find it.

“And then I saw you,” His voice is barely a whisper, “I knew the moment I got close to you _you_ were why I kept surviving. I knew; It was worth all those awful years just to hold you for one moment, even if you were suffering and it was my fault and nothing had ever felt worse, I knew.”

Her eyes swim with tears, a single pale hand is clasped over her mouth like she’s trying to stop herself from crying out, or being sick, one or the other, and Lucien wants to stop talking but he can’t—

“I still have the jacket I gave you. As glad as I am that you came to return it that day in the Night Court, I’d rather you have kept it; I… liked that you had taken a piece of me with you, even by accident; it was all I had to comfort myself with thinking about you in that _place,_ thinking about how helpless I was to do anything about it. if you have any interest in taking it back, I’ve always thought of it as yours since then.” He’s babbling at this point, he knows it, if he’d had a point originally he’s lost it somewhere along the way. “It smelled like you for the longest time after you gave it back, it drove me _crazy_ —“ His voice breaks on the word and he manages to shut his stupid mouth, closes his eyes. “I’m sorry.” He says, and _that_ , at least, feels like the right thing to say.

“Don’t—“

“I am, though. For not giving you the opportunity to learn how to be fae without a mate. For not being stronger, for not stopping Tamlin when I had the chance, for not being a better person, someone who deserves the chance you’re giving me, someone who can give you _normal_.” He breathes deeply, grasping for some semblance of control over the words spilling out of him again. “For inviting you here and then being a horribly depressing host,” he finishes dryly.

“Stop it,” Elain says breathlessly, thickly. “Lucien, stop it. Look at me.” He forces himself to meet her gaze, terrified of the pity he’s going to find, but it’s not there— Elain’s eyes gleam warm with conviction, with empathy, and her hand doesn’t tremble when she reaches out and gently places her fingers on his cheek.

“Sometimes all you can do is save yourself. And that’s enough. It’s more than enough, it’s _everything_ that you’ve made it this far and you can sit here and talk to me.” Her thumb brushes his cheekbone, runs over his scar, and Lucien’s breath seizes in his chest. “And maybe you’re not okay right now; maybe it’ll be a long time before you’re okay. But you’re not alone. We can survive together, and…” She falters, “maybe one day we’ll figure out how to be happy, too.”

Lucien doesn’t realize he’s crying until he can’t see through his good eye for tears, the metal one itching and oily—it doesn’t seem to cry properly. It occurs to him that he’s never known that before, can’t remember the last time he let himself cry at all; was it before Amarantha?

And Elain, beautiful, warm, sweet Elain wraps her arms around him, pulls him in until his head is nestled in the crook of her neck and Lucien is so enveloped in her scent his other senses go numb with it; it feels like his arms don’t belong to him as he gingerly places them around her waist.

Lucien doesn’t know how long they stay like that, holding each other, Lucien blinking tears into her warm skin. His shaking subsides little by little as she strokes his hair. The bond hums between them, alive and as full as it has ever been, and Lucien can’t tell if Elain is pushing something akin to _contentment_ through it or if the bond itself is the source of the feeling of rightness that slowly envelops him, like bathing in sunlight.

“You should get some sleep,” he says at long last, muffled against her shoulder. He doesn’t want her to, he wants to never move from this position ever again, but he doesn’t want to add _blatantly_ _depriving Elain of sleep to cry on her_ to his list of perfectly avoidable sins. He feels her inhale deeply, take a moment before she gently draws back, hands still resting comfortably on his arms.

“Will you be alright?” She asks, little more than a breath.

He doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he nods. She gives him the ghost of a smile— that says she knows exactly what he means, that he is not, but he would be less so for continuing to impose upon her when they are so new and fragile together.

She bends over, and he feels the whisper of her eyelashes, her lips against his cheek as she gives him the faintest kiss there, just next to the scar’s path down his face.

“Goodnight, Lucien. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

_Tomorrow_ , he thinks, as warmth blooms from the spot through his whole exhausted body, as The faint sounds of Elain’s steps retreat back down the hall. Elain is here, and she’s perfect, and he just bled out a thick black pool of messy, awful feelings in front of her and not only has she not run away, but she _kissed him on the cheek for it_. And they have tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, at least. It won’t be enough; a hunger raises its head in Lucien that instantly knows any number of days with Elain won’t be enough, he will always be left wanting more of her. But tomorrow is a start.

Around the edge of the window, a very thin tendril of ivy grows where there was not one before.

 

This chapter can be found [here](http://valamerys.tumblr.com/post/152551278320/fic-a-green-and-growing-thing-part-4) on tumblr!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god and I thought chapter 2 was long


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